ABOUTUS

Caring for our Environment

We here in Scoil Íosa are very aware of the importance of protecting the environment. We have registered our school in the 'Green Schools' programme and are working hard to achieve our green flag. Sharon Joyce from the environmental office from Mayo County Council gave us a talk last year on recycling and keeping our school and community litter free.

Since then we have had three bottle banks, a drinking can bank and two compost bins at our school. Once a week we collect cans in school for recycling. Two children collect the cans every Friday and put them in the recycling bank. Each classroom in our school has a recycling bin. We put all our apple cores, fruit skins, and banana skins into the compost bin. In each classroom we also collect pencil sharpening, and tea bags from the staff room, bread that has been left over after lunchtime and used flowers from our altar. Mrs Maloney told us that the litter is made into compost. This means that the litter composes naturally with bacteria. Little creatures called micro-organisms help speed up the process. Every day we collect milk cartons from the pupils, wash them out and store them. Once a week one of our teachers brings them to the nearest recycling plant.

The teachers in our school are always telling us to look after our environment. Our school is an 'environmentally friendly' school. Surrounding our school we have lots of greenery. There are many tall trees surrounding the football pitch. Two years ago we planted many trees along the road in front of the school and along each side of the premises. We have also planted our own flower bulbs which blossom each Spring.

In October we all had an oppourtunity to see a puppet show about recycling. There were many different characters and scenes in the show, one scene showed how we could make compost, another showed us how to to reduce the amount of waste from our bins by recycling glass, paper, cardboard etc.. and the puppets themselves were all made from materials that were recycled. We all enjoyed the show tremendously.

For Christmas Mr. Bracken's third and fourth class entered a competition to make christmas decorations from materials that were recycled. They had great fun doing this. One of the decorations, made by Dympna, was chosen to represent the class and won a prize from Mayo County Council.

Some decorations made from recycled materials

Our Green School Committee consists of:

Edward Dooney and Breege Hunt (6 th Class)
Daniel Burke and Lisa Williams (5 th Class)
Josh Regan and Dymphna Freyne (4 th Class)
John Vesey and Seána Richardson (3 rd Class)
Kiefer Curry and Caroline Shryane (2 nd Class)
Teresa Murphy (School Secretary)
Sharon O'Reilly (Class Teacher)

January 2004:

1. The Committee decide to go about collecting Christmas cards and stamps for recycling. It is agreed that along with reinforcing the practice of recycling this will also enable the wider community know what we are working on in the school. Children from 1 st and 2 nd class are given responsibility for this. The issue of paper waste is looked at. It is decided that each classroom will have an area to store paper that is suitable for reuse. Everyone is also encouraged to photocopy on both sides of paper

2. Litter

Now that we were slowly becoming more aware of the amount of waste that the school was producing we decided that we should look at the problem of litter. We noticed that our classrooms sometimes had pieces of litter on the floor and on our desks. This was especially bad after lunchtime. Our schoolyard also had quite an amount thrown around it after lunch and break time.

This litter mainly comprised of crisp packets, chocolate bar wrappings, paper, lunch wrappings and sometimes drinks cartons.

In order to reduce our litter we set out some aims:

•  to eat our lunches inside and allow no wrappers or cartons out in the yard

•  to encourage healthy eating and ban crisps and fizzy drinks

•  to introduce a litter warden system to inspect the yard after break time.

3. Energy

We also noticed that at lunch times the lights in all the classrooms were left switched on. On occasions the computers could be on all day without anyone actually using them. We also decided to check the radiators in each classroom.

Again, we set out some aims:

•  to switch off lights when classrooms were empty

•  to try and switch off computers that may be lying idle at break time

•  to encourage teachers to switch off one of the four radiators in the classroom during mild weather

4. Healthy Eating

This ties in with our aim to reduce litter on the yard after break times.

We decided to:

•  ban fizzy drinks and crisps

•  encourage children to bring healthy lunches as often as possible

February 2004

All agree that the reusing of paper is going very well and so we turn our attention to purchasing shredders in order to reduce paper waste even further. Storage boxes for this paper are also obtained. Teresa, our secretary and Ms. O'Reilly have been in contact with Ballina Recycling Centre and our visit is set for February 17 th . 5 th and 6 th class committee members are nominated to set up the compostor. Ms. Johnson is asked to look at the possibility of purchasing litter pickers and so our litter warden system is launched. A rota for each classroom is drawn up for the launch of the Lights Out! Campaign.

The committee decide what aspect of the school should be looked at for the Day of Action. The decision to combine this with National Spring Clean is taken with everyone in agreement that this is the best option. We decide to have our Day of Action on February 17 th and combine it with the trip to Ballina. We also decide to tackle the area near the trees in the yard and collect the litter that's there. Paper from all classrooms will be shredded and our classrooms cleaned.

Green Schools Notice Board

 Our Green Schools notice board is situated in the school hall. We first placed some results of our litter surveys on the board and then followed this with our action plan. This was then added to each month. We also placed issues of our “Green School News” on the board. Elements of these newsletters were sent home along with the school's newsletters throughout the year. All children and staff are encouraged by the committee members to regularly read the notice board in order to keep up to date with our green schools movement.

Monitoring and Evaluation

To date we here in Scoil Íosa are very pleased with the progress we have made with the Green Schools Project.

Our school grounds boast lots of trees and greenery. Our daffodils are once again beginning to flower and this reminds us each spring of the fun we had planting them. Our milk carton and drink carton recycling programme is running very smoothly and has been a great success. The children have really taken to the Lights Out! Campaign and all lights are switched off in the classrooms each day without fail.

Our litter warden scheme in 3 rd and 4 th class is also working very well with the children reminding each other as to whose turn it is on the rota. Litter on the yard and in the classrooms has dropped significantly since the eating in the class and the warden campaign were launched.

The shredders in all classrooms are almost in constant use with children bringing home some for bedding for their pets. The children also now reuse paper without even thinking about it.

Our compost heap is now up and running and is also going very well.

At our Green Schools meetings we always spend time reviewing and evaluating our ideas. We usually discuss how are policies are working, whether or not everyone is pulling their weight and whether the policies are worth continuing or not. The children are always encouraged to give their views on the various projects we undertake. Children always leave meetings trying to think of new ideas for projects and policies and are encouraged to give their opinions on how existing projects can be improved. Any other possible ideas for Green Schools are also discussed by the teachers at break times.

All our hard work seems to be paying off as the number of bags going to landfill has reduced, litter on the yard has dropped significantly and we are conserving energy. The children's pets are also very comfortable with their new bedding!

Day of Action

Our day of action was held on February 17 th 2004 . Students from 4 th , 5 th and 6 th classes went to visit Ballina Recycling Centre and Landfill Site. Here we embarked on a tour of the centre with Tom our guide. He told us about, and showed us, the different types of materials that can be recycled.

We also got to see some of the material after it was baled and one of the workers there let us see the baling machine in action! We visited the landfill site and saw the machines that flatten the rubbish at work.

We also learned that the gasses from the site will hopefully in the future be used to fuel the heating system in the offices there. Tom also told us that Ballina has only enough landfill space to last for the next five years.

We found the tour to be very interesting indeed and it showed us that it only takes a little effort to reuse and recycle.

Meanwhile, back at school, the rest of the classes were having a spring clean. 2 nd and 3 rd class were outside collecting rubbish from around the trees and the yard. 1 st class were shredding all the paper from the classrooms and Infants were cleaning up their classroom.

Our visit to the recycling plant